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Thousands of child soldiers not being demobilized, getting treatment in Chad

According to David Buchbinder from Human Rights Watch, a recent trip to Chad exposed lapses in the treatment of former child soldiers in that country.

Recent demobilization has been negligible. But it’s not because they ran out of children to demobilize – I’ve seen plenty. As recently as June, I’ve seen many obvious children dressed in uniforms with weapons in Chadian army units. The underlying institutional culture of the Chadian army, when it comes to child soldiers, has not changed.

Apparently visits to several child soldier rehabilitation centers showed a disconnect between the urgent need for care of the thousands of child soldiers in that country, and the availability of that care. Most of the centers he visited were either sparsely populated or empty. From Media Global:

Buchbinder also said the facilities built by international humanitarian organizations to rehabilitate demobilized child soldiers stand starkly empty.

However, UNICEF has stated that the number of actual child soldiers in that country is anywhere between seven and ten thousand – a high number for a country that only a year ago signed an agreement banning the use of child soldiers.